Hughes Fire near Castaic Lake sending plumes of smoke across Ventura County
LOS ANGELES COUNTY, Calif. – The approximately 10,396-acre Hughes Fire burning northeast of Castaic Lake in northern Los Angeles County has created smoke plumes visible in parts of Ventura County Wednesday.
The fire is currently at 56% containment as of Friday Morning.
For the latest information about emergencies in Ventura County, visit VCEmergency.com.
All Evacuation Warnings in Ventura County have been lifted.
The Lake Piru Recreation Area will re-open Friday, January 24th at 7:00am.
The image below, courtesy of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, shows the active Evacuation Order (the red areas), the active evacuation warnings (the yellow areas), and the areas directly burned by the Hughes Fire so far (the orange areas).
According to the Ventura County Incident Information page, the brush fire began around 10:30 a.m. California Highway Patrol announced that Interstate 5 has now reopened.
***HUGHES FIRE UPDATE***
— CHP Headquarters (@CHP_HQ) January 23, 2025
I-5 NB and SB are both open at this time. Fire crews are working diligently to keep the fire from threatening the freeway. Before traveling through the Grapevine, check to ensure all lanes are still open. Be informed, be prepared! #HughesFire #CHP
The Ventura County Air Pollution Control District issued an Air Quality Alert for residents in Camarillo, Fillmore, Moorpark, Oxnard, Piru, Santa Paula, Simi Valley, and Ventura as smoke and ash from the wildfire have unhealthy levels of the Air Quality Index.
Ventura County Public Health recommends the following:
- Stay indoors as much as much as possible
- Use an indoor air filtration device to improve where you are staying
- Close all windows and doors that lead outside unless it is extremely hot
- Operate home and car air conditioners in recycle or recirculation mode
- Close fresh air intakes and replace dirty filters
- Avoid strenuous outdoor activity
- If you do need to go outside, an N95 fitted mask can help
To check on the air quality at a specific location, visit here.
Ventura County's Air Quality Meteorologist Tommy Winning, who was a Ph.D. in Coastal and Marine Systems from Texas A7M University-Corpus Christi, called it an active winter.
"If you go back all the way to November we had the Mountain Fire, too it has certainly been different from the last couple of years." said Winning.
"Anytime you can smell wildfire smoke you are breathing in that particulate and that is the most important thing to remember" said Winning," so anytime there is smoke in the area you want to protect yourself with respiration mask if you are outside you want to avoid strenuous activity."
He said the smoke is going where the northeasterly winds will take it.
He recommends using https://www.fire.airnow.gov to see it the smoke is impacting your area.
There is an app for smartphones as well.
Ventura County's Air Pollution Control District Public Information Officer Karin Grennan said her office has been busy sending out alerts to schools, senior center, media and farm workers urging them to monitor the air quality and to take precautions.
"We also have the only wildfire text alert system for farm workers," said Grennan, "and we sent a message to them in Indigenous languages and Spanish and English, making sure they know they should be wearing a mask and that they can get that from their employers."
Visit here to get a broader view of wildfire smoke impacts across the County of Ventura.
Santa Barbara's Air Quality Control District's Public Information Office, Lyz Bantilan, said air quality monitors in Santa Barbara County did not show the area being affected around 4 p.m.
But that could change.
She recommends signing up for https://www.OurAir.org/subscribe.
The image below, courtesy of the Watch Duty Fire Map, shows the location of the fire as well as evacuation orders (the bright red regions), evacuation warnings (the orange regions), and the areas under weather alerts (the pink regions across Los Angeles and Ventura counties).
This is an evolving fire emergency and more information will be added to this article as it becomes available.
